My Mom's Secret Shanghainese Vegetable Rice 上海菜飯

My Mom is Shanghainese and she's been cooking since she was 12, but she never writes her recipes down so I thought it's time for me to take notes on my family recipes which I hope will be passed on for generations!

I don't normally eat white rice on its own unless it's fried and has lots of soy sauce to go with it. I think Shanghainese Vegetable Rice is healthy, full of flavour, and with a little bit of Chinese Chili Sauce, I can easily eat two bowls! Some people prefer to use the chinese ham 金華火腿, my family is very health conscious so we use bacon/pancetta (see picture 1) instead, which is just as good!

This is easy and quick to make, the cooking time is just as long as a rice cooker takes to cook the rice. But the timing and the steps are the key to this recipe. First, the water in the rice must be less than what regular rice cooker needs. Second, the Pak Choy must not be overcooked (see picture 2) and third, it's important that vegetable and ham is not mixed into the rice too early, otherwise the rice will not be cooked thoroughly or the vegetable will be too overcooked/soggy (see picture 3).

1) 2)3)